More Prayer than Protests

Conservative groups were less interested in recent tea party protests than a U.S. District Court decision that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

Tobin Grant/ April 23, 2010

More Prayer than Protests

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More Prayer than Protests

Conservative groups were less interested in recent tea party protests than a U.S. District Court decision that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

Tobin Grant/ April 23, 2010

Political Advocacy Tracker is a roundup of what Christian activist organizations have been talking about over the last week.

Conservatives Ignore Protests

Turn on MSNBC, CNN, or Fox News, and you're bound to see coverage of recent tea party protests and pro-gun rallies. But click on your favorite Christian conservative group's blog or open its newsletter and you will more likely read about the National Day of Prayer than the nascent protest movement.

For conservative groups, the tea party is, at best, an movement that overlaps with their agenda. At worst, it is competition for the grassroots of the conservative movement in America. Either way, conservative groups responded to last week's events with noticeable silence.

Indeed, the only groups to discuss the protests of the past week were those who had the least in common with the movement.

Heidi Unruh of Evangelicals for Social Action said that watching the coverage of the protests made her react with anger, curiosity, and fear. Unruh hoped, however, that we could "get beyond knee-jerk reactions to a thoughtful, faith-full response."

This does not mean that Unruh found the arguments behind the tea party persuasive.

"If you think that lifting those in poverty or confronting lingering racial inequities should be a government priority, the good news is that the tea party movement has just delivered this administration a grade of 'A,'" said Unruh. "The bad news is that they want to overthrow the grading system."

Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, was most concerned with second-amendment protests that occurred April 19, the anniversary of three historic events: the start of the Revolutionary War; the ATF conflict with the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas; and the Oklahoma City ...

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